Thread: Why in the World am I getting this call?

Maybe you're just lucky?

Don't get irritated, do your best and learn as much as possible, you will get good recognize and good opportunity. I had the kind of problems in my life like me and my colleague did the same work but she got more salary and higher position but i didn't , initially I got frustrated but I overcome it, learned more got good job with good salary.

so its almost a year later what happened they throw in a curve ball?

Wow, almost two years, while we`re bull shitting.

Well, I had been working with shipfitters for quite a while. Then as a firewatch for welders. This call was to go work, not only with an electrical crew doing batteries, but fully half of them were the types of people I enjoyed having a break from. Sensitive, or bullshit one-uppers... just sad. I started off quiet, but my inner anger started creeping through.

The more I tried to control it, the more I withdrew. The boss finally called me on it too. She was one of these touchy feelie 'let`s have a potluck every week' types. So I told her straight up, "To be honest, I value working in our shop about as much as our shop values my presence." followed with an explanation of how I had been loaned out, and kept my mouth shut about it because I was working for decent people for a change. Wrapped up with," so, if you really want to be my hero, you`ll get this work shifted around so I can sleep some, maybe try not jamming me in with those imbeciles, or best of all, get me loaned out again."

Felt bad about my little blow, as the boss seemed pretty nice, and I think I just about wrecked her night. She was good though. She didn`t cry, and she didn`t try to hug me.

Two nice things did happen during this trip though. I did go buy my motorbike at about this time (helped me stay sane through the lack of sleep), and the most annoying one of the douche-canoes brace me in a way that let me out him as a lying sack of shit.

This guy was a real piece of work, Gutter.

He came in spouting off about how he worked so much overtime that the union was complaining to the shop that they are not allowed to work someone like that. Eventually, I brought in a copy of the union agreement and asked him to point out the part he was talking about. He couldn`t, and explained that the shop general foremen had told him something about it. Told him perhaps they had been mistaken, and let him slide hoping he would take the hint. Truth is, the union does not involve themselves in an employee`s overtime situation unless the employee complains to them about it, either being unfairly brought when they did not want it, or not getting the OT when they asked for it but it was given to more junior people.

Then this imbecile was always on about who owed donuts, and what was everyone bringing to the potluck... while he would trot in with a couple two litres of soda. Cheap stuff too, from Walmart. The last time he asked me this (I had already stopped showing up for these little get-togethers) I told him he could stop off at Safeway just as easily as I could, and he could go buy his own fucking dinner.

The last one was the best though. I was talking to some folks from another electrician crew working in the other end of the boat. They had been asking me about where I had been, so I told them about the whole welder, shipfitter, whatever experience and how it had actually been pretty good. Lugging in zinc blocks is not very technical, but it is like being paid to work out. So Chris the douche-canoe decides he can one-up this by regaling us all with his zinc lugging experiences while working with the tank cleaners.

A few of us just stared at each other. I had had about enough, so I asked him what he and his tank cleaner buddies were doing on zincs, as this is shipfitter work. He says oh, sometimes tank cleaners do zincs too. One of the other fellas then rings in with," No, zinc blocks are shipfitter work, they do all the hull systems."

The response to this is,"Oh well, someone in admin must have messed up then."

Now I take a deep breath and say, "...Or you could be completely full of shit."

He tried to go off about how I must be the coolest thing ever because I know everything and blah blah blah (like for two or three minutes) and wraps it up with "So what`s next? You gonna try to tell me how to raise kids? You gonna tell me what to do on that too?"

His entire tirade just has people laughing at him. My reply was "Why on Earth would I care how you abuse your kids?"

He got red and left. Pretty much the last conversation I ever had to endure from him.

All in all, my triumphant return to the shop was fairly suck-ass, and I didn`t pull any punches letting people know it. It was sort of a curve-ball. Got put briefly on the inactivation of the Kitty Hawk, where I was an asshole again by outing this idiot we all call 'Itchy Bob'. Nother blow-hard with a lot of stupid stories.

Then I got sent to the Emory Land. Evidently, this was supposed to be a bounce around, but I had worked with the fella who was the Work Leader before. He liked me then and talked the boss into bringing me down to hook up A.C motors. Did have to do a couple other jobs, like some lighting repair and a couple wire runs, but mostly wired up motors and controllers. Bread and butter work for me when I was an EM in the Nav.

Turns out I had made good impressions all around. When the movement list came out, the boss said "Bullshit" and stalked off talking into his phone. A while later, as we were wrapping up for quitting time, the boss caught up to Jimmy (the work leader) and I. He says,"Do you want to keep him (pointing at me) or get our apprentices back?"

Jimmy put his arm across my shoulders and claps his hand down. "Keep Joey."

Boss says,"Good. That`s what I told the shop. You see a movement list, ignore it. Come back here on Monday."

Pretty cool vote of confidence there. In fact, they fought the shop for me three more times before I finally had to go. Rewarded them by taking charge of one helluva crummy lighting job though. In fact, I had taken up one of those apprentices fuck-ups.

The deal was that all the lights had been cut down in the auxiliary room. Now that the ship was getting ready to float, the lights had to be put back. No one tagged them, some of the former mounts were now obstructed by new gear, and the whole situation was fubar.

I tried fiddling around with locating some of those things when the boss came down. He asked about the progress so far, so I told him my misgivings about the ridiculous length of some of the stanchions, how they had shifted when mounted, and how nothing fit even when I could figure out where it had come down from.

He said,"Well, I need lights. Don`t really care how."

I paused a long moment, "Carte blanche?"

He smiled.

I say, "Well, I read once that a light stanchion only has to have these cross pieces if it`s bigger than three feet long."

The boss then left saying "I knew you`d figure something out. You have four days."

So I became a one man wrecking crew. Got a welder, and I was his electrician, fitter, firewatch. Ground and test fit each bracket, held it for welding, bolted on the fixtures when the welder packed up at the end of the day. Twenty seven lights, two stanchions apiece, all raised to about three feet from the overhead.

On the third day, (a Saturday) the boss says,"So where you at?"

"All the stanchions are up with two fixtures remaining to be bolted on. After that, I only need to wire them in."

He says, "Good. With the exception of the sensor people and Jimmy, everyone is yours. Put `em to work."

So I ran it. Got every one wiring, put up the last two fixtures and wired them up, handled any questions, and wired up three more fixtures myself. No one had to be forced in for Sunday. On the following Tuesday when they cleared the tags and energized them, all but two came on. New bulbs fixed the two hold-outs.

For my sins of success, I got transferred to 'inside shop'.

Blew me away. Here I was thinking I might have finally earned some respect, but no, they`re gonna put me in with the wimps and gimps. While there are a few good folks in there, most of them are no longer able to get in and out of the boat so well, and most of them are a bunch of curmudgeons who are just way too into their territorial pissing matches to do anything worthwhile.

Pretty much hated it from the get go, which turned out good, because it took them all back a step. Most of my coworkers think they want to be inside shop. I showed up with a scowl. When asked what 'limitations' I was on, I said,"None, unless you count doing anything worthwhile, cause I don`t see that happening here." At one point I asked the boss there when I could get loaned out again. Basically, I lot of miserable stuff happened there before I had my first on the job accident and nearly sliced my thumb off.

Then I had about three months of light duty before going back to 'inside shop'. There was a new supervisor now, and he was pretty much a complete douch-bag. However, he did seem to do the one thing I could do for myself. Seems he took exception to me right off, so he almost got me out of there. Then he started to waffle though, so I called the union, claimed I was being treated poorly because of the injury, and I would like a fair start back on the waterfront.

This was also when they gave me a nuke worker interview. Think I shocked the Director, because I just told him I would do it without any flack. Sort of got the sales pitch anyway, I think he was just too used to giving it, but I remembered when I hired on that nuclear work was a condition of employment. Also got a promotion that I had given up asking for.

It has been a bit of a change of gears for me. When I was a hero, it was almost like the 'wild west'. Now, carte blanche, has become document everything. The packaging off the parts I use to repair things has to be retained so we can prove the correct part went to the correct equipment. Lot of writing involved in my work now.

I like it though. There is very little old timers holding out on information out of fear of being replaced. A well informed worker is required for nuclear work, so I get to read it straight from the book. No more of this jacked up bullshit 'On the job' training. Sometimes retarded stuff still happens, but there is a lot less asshole attitude coming with it

At the moment, things are decent... subject to change without notice, naturally.


P.S. Reply too long? Seriously? Sorry about having to break up the response here.

Actually quite interesting. You sound a lot like me lol.

I'm working now for 2 pissant Lead mechanics who shit themselves when people come to me for help or information, instead of them. I've had and done their job, in a much more demanding situation. Afternoon shift Lead on International ops will either make you or break you, and in the 9 months I had that job I had 4 late International departures due to maintenance. My old bosses have called/emailed asking when I'm coming back, yada yada. Too bad the winters suck so bad in Philly. Other than the great Commonshithole of PA and the weather, I enjoyed working there.